Was Bull Island The Worst Music Festival of All Time?
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- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
- Fyre Fest, Woodstock '99, Altamont... there have been many great festival disasters over the years. But none of these come even close to 1972's Erie Canal & Soda Pop Festival (Also known as "Bull Island.") The lack of preparedness, the lawlessness, the desperation of the crowd; it's like the bad-acid trip version of Woodstock where [spoiler] everything burns down. [/spoiler]
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Some of the music heard in this video:
0 : 00 - In the Hall of the Mountain King
2 : 48 - Zodiac Structures by NoMBe
6 : 53 - Washington Post by US Army Band
7 : 43 - Blues Power by Albert King
9 : 53 - Free Spirit by Birtha
14 : 41 - Firebrand by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com/)
17 : 48 - The Sticks by Engine Summer (enginesummer.b...)
I can see the headline now "90 year old man found alive on Bull Island, still thinks Rod Stewart is going to show up"
So true lol
LOL so important to keep that positive mindset ! :)
LMAO 🤣😂🤣
🤣🤣
😂😂😭💀
I remember at Woodstock 99 some guy was running screaming "get out it's going to be a bull Island all over again" none of us really knew what he was talking about
HAHA 🤘🙂 I was there people buged out when everybody started getting robbed for water and crazy prices from vendors
A friend of mine went to that disaster..... people didn't want to pay $ 8.00 for bottle of water.....so they trashed the stand and bedlam unsued
I was at Woodstock '99. I saw the situation, made a quick trip to the local walmart and bought a large cooler, a radio flyer wagon and a lot of bottled water. I took that ice cold water right down to the areas in front of the stages and sold it for $4 a bottle. It sold like wildfire and people thanked me for providing the service. My freind and I made almost $10,000 that weekend.
@@IHateThisHandleSystem That's amazing you sold 2500 bottles of water from a simple kids wagon after a single trip to Walmart. Didn't know re-admittance was allowed with outside goods. Your story's almost unbelievable.
@@7n154 I think I remember in 99 that by Saturday and Sunday I was going into Rome to buy beer and water and getting back in with it... Not 10 grand worth in a wagon tho... That's a bit of a stretch... By Saturday afternoon most of the volunteers gave up... Hardly any showed up
In college in mid-80s , the grad assistant in the Film & TV school told us of his experience at Bull Island. He went with a Super 8 movie camera and 20+ hrs of film in order to create an amateur documentary about Where Young People Were At.
Alas, his camera and film were stolen.
Holy shit.
I WOULD HAVE BAILED on day one. I need basic stuff like water & toilets
.
person who stole his shit: "wtf kinda footage is this?! its of people and not bands! we can't use this! what a waste"
God that sucks. What an amazing doc that would have been.
That would of been a sick documentary
I bet turd fields has the greenest grass on bull island.
Probably covered in the greatest flowers.
I could be wrong but isn't human manure like, not that good?
@@kleydavis2824 it's still pretty good for plant growth lol
@@kleydavis2824 try it. go take some laxative and shart in your back yard. you'll see the grass so green in that one spot.
@@kleydavis2824 so you don’t wanna eat anything grown from human manure but for show plants it can promote super nice growth that said unless you don’t have a toilet it’s a bit of a strange practice
For that tow-truck driver, who had always hated hippies, it was the best weekend of his life.
@@sirjellybeans1st19 Are you okay?
@@sirjellybeans1st19 is this a fart joke ?
@@k1dofficial He's going through a second childhood, I guess.
@@Anthony-hu3rj Hey man don’t knock it . Potty humor is still funny and I am in my 60s but it has to be original. The Belgian Farting Pig was cute , original, and funny . Jokes about Uranus are even beyond cliche now .
That weekend put his kids through college :P
I was 14 years old. Of course my folks would not allow me to attend. However once I found out I could make money working for a respected catering company, including a ride there and home with my BFF, they agreed. I still remember that long ride. Traffic was pretty much standing still with freaks, aka hippies parking everywhere and walking in the middle of the road. It took an entire day to get to the area that the catering company had set up. The lady in charge of our group kept telling us to stay together and rub dirt on our faces so we’d fit in. It was exciting chaos. Ultimately we were told that we’d have to head back home because the freaks had overtaken the catering truck and were giving out the hamburgers. I never saw any bands. But crazy enough I did see my boyfriend along side the road. (Married him the following summer). It will be 50 years for us in 2023!
Congrats
Love this
you married at 15?
Sweet
Oh horseshit
Even though they were largely unknown at the time, imagine leaving early and missing The Doobie Brothers and The Eagles
@Bad Guacamole why?
I had at least one maybe two Eagles albums by 73.
@@kingjohnny4314 Its a quote from the Big Lebowski, the Dude says it.
@@skullsaintdead oh ok
@@kingjohnny4314 ... because someone said that in a movie once and it "went viral" people fearing they won't be cool..."hate The Eagles" fucking idiot probably couldn't name three songs.
Went to Bull Island with girl I was seeing at that time and it was about my worst musical experience ever. We were probably 2 of the few fools who paid, tickets were just $20. Went to see groups like the Allman Brothers, Amboy Dukes, Small Faces, Bob Segar, Albert King, Fleetwood Mac, Chambers Bros, the remaining Doors, John Mayall etc. and instead saw Vince Vance and the Valiants and Flash Cadillac and the Continentals Kids. Wanted to see Black Sabbath but got Black Oak Arkansas instead (who most people really liked). We did at least get to see Albert King, Rory Gallagher, Canned Heat, Cheech and Chong and Ravi Shankar. Funny thing Ravi was first introduced as "Rabbi Shankar" before being heckled to get it right. The deal was so freakin' disorganized and the drugs available and for dirt cheap was like nothing I have ever seen before or since. Like a cheap open air flea market with every kind of drug in MASSIVE quantities that you can imagine. What was kind of foggingly clear to me was how few were there for the music and how many were there to see how fucked up they could get on downers like barbituates, heroin, sopers etc. Lots of good people but an all around bad scene, bad acid and we got the hell outa there after 2 days. Just check out any of the big crowd pix --- very few smiles. Not many having fun the longer it went on, vibe was bad news.
TIL: Soper is another term for Quaaludes
TILtoo thanks josh 👍
@@S0m3_Dude123 yes exactly right and thanks josh ... sopers (or sopors), quaaludes, ludes, all pretty much the same thing, basically muscle relaxers .... really popular in the early 70's. A festival like that, guess you could say I was glad to "experience" that kind of chaos once lol. Would I do it a 2nd time ? No Way !! :) Still bummed I never saw even the remaining Doors live :(
Whoa - sounds miserable. Thank you for posting
It seems like a reverse woodstock, remember it's head liners were like Sha Na Na and then the bands took it upon themselves to show up and play. This festival said they were coming and they never played.
I’m convinced that 80% of the litter in America today is just from music festivals in the 60s-70s
Yep, these are the same take care of the earth hippies, similar to todays millennials. They are hypocrites, and that’s why boomers and millennials hate each other, they remind each other of how big hypocrites they both are, saying they want peace and to take care of the world, while destroying it and fighting with others.
yup and its funny cuz all of the ppl from that time blame the generations now for how shitty the world can be d
@@Get_yotted just goes to show, people have always been the same
it all returns to nothing~
@Alex Duckless lol unfortunately
Damn. Only two people dead? That's crazy considering all this chaos.
I went to a festival once with just 3,000 people and there were car fires, a dude who was found drowned down-river, and a completely washout on the 3rd day where a bunch of cars needed towing out of the mud. And it was also the most chill time ever. These things can happen at any level of bringing city people together in the middle of nature.
I was thinking exactly the same thing! They got extremely lucky. Only 2 deaths!! Especially with all those bad drugs - people were snorting bleach and shooting heroin. Hardly any water to stay hydrated, just booze. And just a medical team of 18 for 250,000 people! I bet a lot of stuff went unreported.
Yeah hearing the story and seeing the picture I would of thought at least close to 10 maybe more or less. Just seemed like with all that was going on drugs, lack of food water, etc. But young people are a hardy lot! LOL!
@@7n154 That is for sure and there were some medical emergencies so if those people had not been cared for well who knows. So I am sure there were some jacked up people in many ways they just managed to survive it all. LOL maybe some shortened their lifespans due to the stress put on their bodies, but young people are pretty tough at times. Heck I think I was young and crazy once!
@@slagit Ha, true that. I heard once that God watches out for the young, the stupid and the drunks. Which sounds like most of the attendees of this festival. One time at Coachella, a friend of mine had his head nearly run over by a car. A car! But he was all 3 of those things so he survived.
Woodstock organizers: whew, we really did that by the seat of our pants, that got messy
Bull Island organizers: hold our Boone's
right on
😂🤣 Good one!
Woodstock '99 Organizers: Autistic screeching.
I was there with 5 high school buddies. None of us bought poison laced drugs and we hauled a cooler full of pop and sandwiches. We did leave early Monday morning after the night of fires where the food trailers were burned down. Many groupd we came to see of course never appeared, but we had a blast. I have very fond memories of the festival and the trip there and back with my friends.
Was pooping a big problem? I’m a hiker so comfortable going outside, but not in front of a quarter million people. lol
Took about 7 hours for Fyre festival to degenerate into a free for all. These guys held up quite well.
Not really : there was nothing happening whatsoever there, so there wasn't much to f*ck up.
@@jas_bataille I'm not talking about physical destruction of property but the free for all that many attendees reported that was the selfish, inconsiderate behaviours of many of the people that went to Fyre festival where they pretty much turned on each other.
Fyre festival attracted a very different crowd
Fyre couldn’t have fallen apart, because it was never together.
At least some of the bands actually hit the stage at Bull Island...
Imagine when not being able to see Rod Stewart is an existenial crisis.
Going to a music camping festival is like creating an artificial New Years Eve. It feels like your whole life has come down to this night and nothing else matters.
Lol. Must have been the drugs.
I guess you didn't get the memo, but The Faces were huge in those days and were one hell of a great live show.
@@obbor4 There was a memo?
One of the greatest artists of all time, so yeah a bit more of a big deal than anyone today
I went for one day. I was 21. Road up on my motorcycle. Nobody bothered it. It was pretty much as described. Saw an old man I knew and he was walking down the dirt road drinking whiskey out of a big bottle. Staggering was more like it. When he saw me he screamed “look at this bunch of freaks”. I thought then that he was the freakiest thing I had ever seen.
so you're like 60 years old?!
You ever thought of using a comma?
you know, when I think about Bull Island I don't worry about punctuation that much. But I used a comma here. did I do it correctly?
@@southwestxnorthwest
I liked this.
There was so much Boones Farm Wine because it was hauled in and sold by Hell's Angels on a school bus and you could not pass without buying one, $2.00.
Is that true?
@@MrJohnnyDistortion yes,I saw it with my own tired eyes.
@@19dfr54
The Hell's Angels were selling Boonsfarm wine?
If you remember at the time you could probably buy a bottle of Boone's farm for a dollar so Angels selling for two bucks really was not an altruistic project.
@@19dfr54
Not altruistic? But that's their mantra.
Standing 46000th in queue to the toilet... “man I hope the dude in front of me doesn’t skid the bowl”.
Changing the subject slightly here's an interesting fact
Did you know that if something probed Uranus it would be a high possibility of being a failure due to the pungent noxious gases that puff and emit from it but I'm sure your close friends told you that already
The best camping festivals I went to had simple "drop toilets". Deep hole dug prior, rudimentary frame on top with back-to-back cubicles and actual toilet seats on top of wooden boxes. The drops could be used for food scraps too. And at the end of the festival they took away the frames, washed them, and tipped the dirt back into the holes. Done and dusted. This is an idea from the 60's, and probably would have been at Bull Island, but the frames were left back at the speedway. Shame!
@@sirjellybeans1st19 Your mom told me
British
🤣😝🤭😆 Skid the bowl😝
I hitch-hiked there from Tulsa Oklahoma with a girl/friend from high school. We were both 16. Hey Dalene? You out there? lol Anyway, there was a sort of ticket taking booth at the entrance but we happened to arrive just as the fence on both sides of it was pushed down and all of us ticketless people started pouring in. Near the entrance to the left was a dirt road lined with VW busses and other vans, each with a table in front and some sort of makeshift sign advertising what types of drugs they had for sale. To the right of the entrance was a spot in the river where thousands of people were swimming naked. We continued on up toward the crowd and sat about 100 yards from the stage; close by comparison to most others who arrived later. No food at all for three days, very little water, but plenty of every kind of drug imaginable being passed around. The lack of food and water was probably a good thing, since the crowd was way too big to get out of to pee or poo since it would take 20 or 30 minutes just to get to the tree line. The video said people went into the woods but they really just dug a hole right where they were sitting, went, and filled the hole back in.
Some people were walking around naked, more men than women, and if the mood struck a couple (or any two people who had just met) to have sex they would just lay down right there in the middle of the crowd and do it. I remember some of the music but for the most part, this was one of those "If you remember it you weren't there" kinds of things.
I do remember showing up at home, just after dawn. My Dad was working on some project in the driveway. He was used to me disappearing for a few days and didn't bother asking me for explanations anymore. He just said "You look tired" to which I replied yes I was (four days of no sleep, no food, and lots of drugs will do that to you). Would I do it again? Hell no, but I'm glad I did.
Cool , first hand account man . Thanks for sharing .
"I poop muh pants... Yiaa I pooped em" lol
@@TheDeepening718 you did? Ok.
David? Is it you??
Right On, Brother, right On. Well said.
My Dad was there. Evansville and the surrounding communities are notorious for cancelling anything that the youth are into, especially controversial music acts.
Yep. There are at least two dozen defunct all-ages clubs I can think of from that area
Hence, why you need drugs to live in Indiana...what a flat boring wasteland.
@@Clay3613 Yep. Only nice part is the Hoosier National Forest. That’s about it. Oh, and Bloomington is pretty nice.
The laundromat in Evansville was very busy I remember.
@CRAM MARC fuck yeah toledo
There are all sorts of these forgotten festivals throughout the 70s that were just disasters. Almost every state has at least one story. They're some of the darker moments in rock history.
Yeah and the same reason Rock became so infamous
North Dakota Zip to Zap, 1969, a month before Woodstock. States only riot.
Heck, Puerto Rico had one and BILLY JOEL performed there before his fame started!!
I went to the Texas International Pop Festival near Dallas on Labor Day weekend 1969. Several bands and crew members and announcers came from the previous Woodstock fest that August.
It was a blast. I was only about 15 (no drugs), and to my knowledge, it went off without a hitch. Of course the heat was a factor...but seeing a then unknown Santana...Grand Funk, and legendary B.B.King was well worth it! ✌
People that went to Woodstock from Maryland said it was awful. Anything that could go wrong did. Only after the movie and album did it all of a sudden become amazing. Like a artist that gains fame posthumously.
People died at woodstock
On the other hand I know folks who went to Woodstock in '69, got home 2 days later and immediately were raving about all the great bands they saw -- some like Ten Years After, Mountain, Santana, and CSN&Y together for first time, that were relatively unknown at that point. Is all POV I guess.
@@suekennedy1595 One or two only, I believe. One was a guy who was sleeping in a farm field and got run over by farm equipment before dawn, I believe. That is hardly a tale of debauchery and savagery. On the other side I think there were some births!
@@suekennedy1595 There was 1 (one) guy killed in an accident. On the other hand in any given town with a population of 400k or more people, there are deaths every day.
That would've been one hell of a lineup had all those bands not canceled.
The doom and gloom of it all would have been worth it had Black Sabbath played.
Someone in Hollywood needs to turn this shitshow into a feature length movie.
Something with Chicago 7 vibe
Yeah or maybe a longer documentary
Train Wreak on Netflix has an excellent account of the horrible happenings at the 1999 Woodstock disaster!
Like Woodstock 99
Would be a great plot for an episode of American Horror Stories, and they could put some sort of supernatural twist to it 🙂
So, government trying to keep people “safe” by disallowing a festival that tried to comply with the law ended up putting people in danger by giving them no option but to host on an unpoliced island. Yep sounds about right.
“No option”
I don't think the government is really to blame here. The guys hosting the festival were the ones who decided to go on with it knowing full well how big of a mess it was going to be.
This was caused by greed. They should have cancelled it.
@@AtemiRaven I think I will have to disagree, no one was going to bail them out of a $700.000 debt, it's not a matter of greed
@@thepraetorian2368 Today I learned that 700,000 dollars is worth two human lives and hundreds of injuries.
There is no excuse for continuing with something that you KNOW is going to cause harm no matter how much debt your in. They should have accepted the debt like every other business owner out there would have.
And they definitely knew what they were doing was a bad idea.
If they allowed it to take place in the city the idiots would have destroyed it
This channel is going to blow up very fast. There's no way it couldn't.
What?
Is this a bull or an island?
How it’s made: Hippies
Or is it
@@Forestofjunipers rinsing machine
Damn imagine tripping and seeing the environment slowly waste away.
I like to call that "The Millenials Reality"
@@marcalvarez4890 what does that mean?
@@RTMonitor he’s playing the at the fact millennials and younger are tripping out while climate change destroys the environment
@@WK12112 "...while HUMANS destroy the environment..."
@@marcalvarez4890 bruh millenials werent even born yet lmao
I metal detected a little portion of the site and found a bunch of cool stuff. Belt buckles (I guess pants were up and down) stainless syringes, pocket knives, coke spoons, a machete, a few nice pipes. Its like a 70s time capsule. I would love to do that at woodstock.
That's the first thing I thought about when it said the owner buried it all. Would be awesome to metal detect!
@@ZenZone_Soundscapes I only spent a day there. Loads of space left to detect. Im not sure about permission but no one bugged me. As mentioned in the documentary its not entirely easy to get to.
Very cool. I'm a detectorist as well.
How’d u get back there
I live walking distance to it on Indiana side
One toilet for an entire sold out crowd at Wrigley Field. Sounds about right
Yeah but did you hear the part about the poo field? So... all good.
@@GlennDavey the same thing happened in Pemberton in the mid 2000's. I met the honey pot driver doing the Squamish Hosp. reno in 2009 just before the Olympics, and he told me of "the horror, the horror". The venue people not only didn't secure enough toilets they didn't allow for a ROAD for the three axle truck to get in/out of the venue. by the time he got to the toilets they were huge piles , literally. Someone didn't learn.
@@thedwightguy Had they adequate accelerant, they could have burned it the way it's done at forward military bases.
@@GlennDavey Oh the stench must of been epic and imagine if it was in the 90s to 100s in temp vomit inducing times in this mess!
I have been there.. not that bad, but a handful of toilets for thousands of people. It did not smell good haha
I'm 67, living in Iowa. I was at this Festival! What a trip to find this documentary. I spent the Festival 'up'. I built a 'compound' for our community...fire pit, fence, gate with an arch. I remember it fondly. Thanks.
Speed?
@@yommmrr Yep. Low grade. What we called cross tops, prescription diet pills.
@@brucewilson1958 haha cool thanks for the reply!
Nice work👌
Wow??????
I was at the Bull Island festival. I hitched there from Chicago with two buddies. The conditions were terrible, but I was eighteen and had a great time. None of the big names played, but the bands that did play became big shortly after. They had Nazareth, Foghat, the Eagles, the Doobie Brothers, Rory Gallagher, Black Oak Arkansas, Amboy Dukes with Ted Nugent, and a group called Ramtan or something like that. They had a female guitarist who was great and the drummer was Mitch Mitchell from Hendrix. I stayed until Tuesday because it was easier to leave then. I also snuck in.
Ramatam, April Lawton
Ted Nugent a pdf file
Do you remember who was supposed to be singing for the Doors. Jim has been gone for well over a year at this point.
@@streamofconsciousness5826If I remember correctly, Sammy Hagar.
Sammy frontman for the Doors? 🤔🤣
The irony is that had the county simply allowed the event to take place as originally planned, none of the carnage would have taken place.
Debatable, the sheer numbers of people involved make crowd control and security extremely difficult no matter where the event is being held. Even the original Woodstock had a death (a vehicle ran someone over).
based on the amount of people that showed, that entire community would have been fucked, They probably think they dodged a bullet by blocking it.
they'd probably have done some other r'tarded shit.
They didn’t let it happen because it was gonna happen in their cities. That’s not ironic. What is ironic is that they managed to hold the event and it went to shit just like they predicted.
@@Domebuddy you described how they did dodge a bullet only to claim they think they did. Some people can be straight retards even today.
That is the first time EVAR I've ever seen Boone's Farm drunk from a glass and not just pulled straight from the bottle.
I was underage, so my mother bought me some because I wanted to try it. I was 18, so she thought it was ok. I remember getting ready to see my favorite band and sipping. Never drank it again.
When he said it was "OK" I laughed, what a generous critic.
No kidding! We drank that & ‘Annie Greensprings’! Maybe MD 20/20, if we were rich!
@@JDavidHopkins Those we’re the liquor of choice in our all-girls dorm at Western Mich.University.
Paper cups were common enough.
There was a 'festival' one year in my home county put on by some rich kids and a group of bikers . Somehow these dudes got Lonnie Mack , Bootsy and Catfish Collins and their band , and lots of other local kids and pick up bands to play at this party in the sticks a few miles from Cincinnati. Secret , yet word of mouth advertised like any rural party. It was an epic , acid and black molly fueled bash for one long saturday in 1979 . It went down as the mother of all field parties.
Yeah, I too was there aged 19. Drove from west central Ohio and "parked" my car along the highway. It, however was not towed. Frankly, I really don't remember much. Didn't pay to get in and had brought along a fair amount of weed and acid. Spent most of my time scrounging, trippin' and trading. Slept under a semi trailer. I had no idea that the bands that bailed were even slated to be there. The Boone's farm was what we drank.
I was there as well. We hitched from Ar. Had a hell of a time. Left on that Monday AM as I don't remember the Eagles at all. Do remember Cheech and C. waking us all at about 6 thirty AM one day and not even mentioned here. I do remember them talking about not taking the blue acid in particular. I was 21.
@@janetarmstrong7010 LOL Janet ... it is crazy how many remember the freakin' constant warnings about that "blue acid". I too remember Cheech and Chong well (and had already seen them live even before this fiasco of a festival) -- and stuck in my brain is that "Jim Dandy to the rescue" mantra.
That was fascinating. I'd never heard of that shit-show until now.
Me too. And a shit show it was, wow.
This makes Woodstock 99 look like a great time
I love opossums
I just learned there was a female hard rock band in the early 70's called "Birtha" and they were really intensely good. How did they get so erased from history that I'm just finding this out?
Glad i missed it!
It doesn't matter where in America, where in the world this happened - it could happen anywhere, but it's the mirror image of an ultra-libertarian society, where everything fails for lack of authority, hierarchy, structure, organization. I found this very educational, thank you.
I was there. I remember Albert King singing Kansas City a few times to fill the gap due to the no-show performers. Bi-polar is the best way I could describe the overall atmosphere of Bulls Island. Also, you didn't have to sneak in, the swarm of concert goers pretty much walked unabated past the people selling tickets.
I remember when we got there the gates were just going down so we just jumped over them and walked right in. Easy... Actually, we had a good time. Towards the end of it, it did get creepy with the announcements not to take the blue acid. I remember that over and over. People started to pull some rather nasty crap with drug selling of garbage! Then the tone all changed.
@@janetarmstrong7010
Overall, it was a good time. There was an O.D. close to our tent. He looked pretty lifeless when they carried him off. Hope he survived.
I was 14 and lived 150 miles from this festival. I remember news coverage of it, but do not recall hearing about its catastrophic results. The angle of the news was that due to lack access from Illinois, police would be absent, therefore it was a drug supermarket. This really fills in my understanding of the event. Thanks for a great vid.
“Turd fields”may be the funniest shit ever!
Danm 🤣
The promoters should have been held responsible for cleaning the site , it’s pretty disgusting that they just buried everything
Just paper and beer bans
@@Cutlass_Rudd And shit and puke and who knows what.
@@deaconsmom2000 burying shit and puke and paper is totally fine, its basically fertilizing the soil
I wonder what archeologists in the future will make of that, and other dump sites.
@@Xanderboof hopefully drugs
"Ehh... it was ok." is quite possibly the highest compliment that anyone has ever given to Boone's Farm.
I was there in ‘72! It was a pretty intense long weekend. I remember thinking if something serious happens, there’s no way out. Later, someone behind me (accidentally) caught my hair on fire. 🔥 It was pretty terrifying!
Given the number of people, the environment they were in, lack of planning and resources, it's really pretty remarkable there were so few deaths. This really could have been so much worse than it was.
Although, I have to say, when it was said that the site was just bulldozed I am inclined to consider how many bodies might have been buried. Makes me wonder how many people disappeared over that weekend and no one has any idea they're buried there. When you think about the attitudes of the time you **damn well know** they didn't actually check.
It's an excellent question. The vibe I got is that the Illinois/Indiana State Police and local newspapers were keen on collecting as much "negative" information on the festival as they could -- drug use, nudity, looting and, of course, deaths. All of this was ammunition for the culture war of the day. Portraying the hippies as lawless and dangerous was literally how they fed themselves.
In that case, I don't think they have much incentive to cover up additional deaths. Besides pure laziness / the hassle of doing an investigation, they have basically everything to gain from reporting more chaos on Bull Island.
@@Bandsplaining Well no, not literally. You can't eat a portrayal.
@@Bandsplaining "Portraying the hippies as lawless and dangerous..." Well yeah, they were lawless and dangerous. They were in possession of a shitload of illegal substances and vandalized other people's property. Let's not paint the Hippies as innocent little angels.
@@md_vandenberg guarantee there are NO hippies named Vandenberg! EVER!
@@Bandsplaining Yes, and no : at the end of the day, they were still held accountable by the population for "allowing" the festival - even if they couldn't really do anything.
This means that too much negative publicity, and the population blame the authorities for their lack of foresight... so there's a limit on how much of a f*ck up you can honestly report on. If you say that a bunch of people died and are buried in there... damn... you're in trouble.
Not to say that it happened, but I've heard about worst hidden carnage, and proven ones as that.
That’s nothing... you should have been to my 8th birthday 🥳
oh, I was there, man. Back in the day. What a wild trip that was...
;-)
funk daddys throwback 2
I still have the scars.
If you can remember it, you weren't really there.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Thanks I needed that 😆💜😆
I was there and this is the first report about it I have ever seen, 51 years later. I hitchhiked from the Chicago area. Didn't want to take a car because I was afraid I'd never get it out. My girlfriend and I had only a double sleeping bag and that was okay until it rained. We spent the night trying to sleep in a downpour. Other than that, we were hungry but had a pretty good time. I only remember Ravi Shankar and Cheech & Chong. I never heard anything about it being such a disaster until now.
You mentioned hitchhiking man that's a thing never ever heard of these days. I remember many times back in the 70s and even 80s seeing or picking up someone hitchhiking. Those were the good ole days. I miss the hell out of them. Have a great one. 😊
@@mr.willywinker4u849 - Thanks. I did a lot of hitchhiking in my younger days and used to pick up hitchhikers as well. I’m done with both sides of that equation.
The so-called "Celebration of Life Festival" in McCrea, Louisianna was even more disastrous... Not only was there the usual bad planning, and lack of facilities and supplies, but some attendees got beaten by both bikers and cops, and a number of attendees drowned in the swift moving river that ran next to the site, when they tried to find relief from the awful heat. Needless to say, many of the big name acts cancelled, including Pink Floyd...buy a number of good bands did play, including Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, Ike & Tina Turner, and Delaney and Bonnie
The Amboy Dukes would play any gig they could get in those days. They even played my HS, C. B. West (in Doylestown, PA), in 1970.
Hate the fucking nuge.
@@charlesvalentine6287 Waaah! Cry me a river! He's one of the BEST!
@@charlesvalentine6287 sweaty teddy bad person great musician imo.
Bikers typically suck
What was up with the whole "I'm gonna leave my car in the middle of the road and walk" thing during the 60s and 70s. Were cars that cheap? Did the kids who did it think they would get their cars back? I could never imagine just leaving my car in the middle of the street
Used cars were extremely cheap and easy to find, and they probably didn't think the state could possibly tow that many cars and I mean how did they anyways? Where did they put them all tow lots aren't very big lol, plus if it weren't for cashforclunkers and car buy backs it would be much easier to find old 70-80s cars that are cheap and still run good.
I bought my car in 1967 for $100 ... it ran great, always got me where I needed to be ... I would NEVER leave it in the road, so I don't get that either ... but it happened for sure, crazy
They knew that when they went back, car would be there
Different time when we could do that
Cars in the 70s were much different. They used inexpensive steel instead of aluminum, carbon fibre, and other pricey materials, and they were welded together instead of having a single one-piece unibody. There were no computers, no electronics, and used manual transmission. It meant they were cheap to make and easy to maintain... and any collision over 20mph would probably leave you deader than Old Dad's hatband, although the car itself would survive just fine. The "crumple zone" was your legs and spine.
Needless to say my memories of this show were crazy … my band BANG were the last band to play before all hell broke loose … besides all the headliners bailing on the show … the bands that did play never got paid … we ended up being stranded with no money to get to the next show … we were stuck … unable to get help from our manager the Doobie Brothers took it upon themselves to give us money to make it to our next gig … THANK YOU …
Lies
Sure the concert didn't go off as planned. And as stated, there were obstacles. Maybe I'm a glass half full guy because I got by okay and jammed to some really good tunes.
For me it was an adventure of sorts too.
And yeah, I drank a fair amount of Boones Farm.
All the bad acid was as big a draw back as anything IMO. What a shame.
Nazareth was flat out smoking hot.
At 18 my, experience may have been different than others.
When I finally got home, I don't think I would have gone again knowing the outcome, but there were several reasons for that.
I never had seen such drug availability and drug use as I did for three days on that island, and haven't since.
If 275,000 of us were on that island then, I wonder how many are left now.
I'm closing with one of my favorite memories.
I'm almost sure it was Sunday night shortly after dark, the guy that was continually walking on the stage and warning of bad dope, came out and said that there was a film crew there from CBS News. He asked everybody with a lighter to light it and hold it in the air. I was right in front of bandstand to the left and turned around to see how many people would have a lighter in the air.
From that vantage point looking back and sort of up hill at the whole crowd, it was then that I realized how many of us there really were. I wish I had a pic of that. The CBS story was just that, a story.
After 49 years, those of you left, I wish a good life.
Thanks for sharing your story man. You seem great. Stay safe, hope youre well
Awesome!
I graduated in 1972 from Shelbyville IN. The draft was still on and I wasn't sure where I was heading. A buddy and I heard about the festival and headed down in my car. We never made it. About 4 miles or so from the area you couldn't drive any further so we parked along the side of the road. We had brought some hotdogs, a couple cases of beer and an ounce of pot. So while we were deciding how to haul all our crap the remaining walk, we hooked up with some chicks. The rest, as they say, was history. I KNOW I had a good time.
This aged like fine wine.
In the late 80s, I worked with a guy who went to this, the only other time I ever heard about it. Thanks for posting this video with the story about it. I remembered his stories and they all make more sense after all these years. In fact, his stories are THE reason I never went to a music festival
aww, most festivals are good fun :) you should try it.
My mom and dad went to this! They had a great time. Both sides of the freeway got gridlocked going the same way lol. One guy was bashing his head into a car windshield cuz he'd snorted bleach(only bad story). Cheech and Chong woke everyone up at 6:00 am saying "get up mfers! It's time to party!".
It’s all in the state of mind.
What the hell did you snort to believe that story!?
"Snorting bleach" is an urban legend from waaaaaaaay back
No. It really happened more than once. Do you think that all drug dealers only deal in products that meet FDA approval?
The narrator in this video literally says “bleach sold as cocaine” at one point. Someone must have skipped that part.
@@CNYKnifeNerd big time woosh, for you. Lmao
This was recommended to me out of nowhere this week. Probably because I was watching the Wacken 2023 Livestream last weekend which suffered heavy rain and mud, being an outdoor metal festival. Luckily I can report that, despite massive set backs and having to close admission on the first day, the festival this was nevertheless was a success. So much so that on the final fay Wacken had made a short montage video thanking fans, the crew, the organizers and the bands for their participation and hard work and dedication to metal. I have no idea what compelled me to write this comment. Maybe I just needed to balance out the bad with the good if for nobody else but myself. 🤘
Same. Was watching a lot of festival gigs by some artists I like, some that I guess are examples for good or bad crowd handling.
Fun fact: my dad was conceived on this festival
That's a fun fact for parties.
Does anybody know by whom?
@@Mentyr dude... that's so dark.
@@Mentyr pmsl
So was my aunt! Crazy times
You should do a similar video on the Love-and-Peace-Festival 1970 in Fehmarn, Germany. It was a complete disaster and by the way the infamous last concert of Jimi Hendrix. There was everything involved to get a nasty festival experience: Hells-Angels-like rockers as staff members, rainy weather, headliners falling out. The result: A angry crowd boing Jimi Hendrix, promoters escaping overnight with all the money and the organizer's center going up in flames.
Nice attention to detail in this documentary, like getting the period-correct photo for the Doors for 1972 (12:45.) I believe this is the same photo they used for the Other Voices album.
"a defeated army" shows all happy smiling waving kids
Yeah, but that was on the front end of the festival.
@@frogbones1968 it was a contemporary news report from the start of the festival
I'm aware.
Crazy how ive never even heard of this festival! Love this channel
Excellent video, really interesting discovery. I'd love a bad trip horror movie about that very event.
That's a wild ride! Anyone with a shovel and backbone could dig a few outhouses, though.
it's a good idea but eventually that just becomes a hole surrounded by shit
Music festival kids are pretty useless most of the time. I always dig my own secret hole ;)
Yeah, I always bring a shovel along when I go to music festivals.
I bet you would have had a shovel.
Also you'd have generously spent the weekend digging shitholes for all the needy assholes there.
@@Momusinterra hahahhahah
Excellent doc. I was at Woodstock and this is an amazingly well-done encapsulation of the era. Ah! Memories! Here’s to us.
GREAT video...totally new to the story of this festival and loved it immensely. i almost wish i had been there!
That is one of the better mini documentaries I’ve ever seen on CZcams. Really well done, not over done on the self serving sarcasm and humor like most other docs of this type, not a lot of wasted or irrelevant build up time to events that took place, and some really good archival footage. Well done and this channel just won over one new subscriber.
Beginning to notice the difference around them.
Oh dang dang, thanks for using one of our tunes again!! Great video as always!! #bandsplaining
Boone’s Farm is what we bought from the convenience store when we wanted to get drunk in college. It’s also a favorite of bridge-dwellers.
9:49 "the crowd enjoyed some more wild wha-?" ohh SETS... probably the other thing too though, right?
I heard that too😂🤣
Hmm probably not. Sex didn't really become popular until the mid 1980's.
@@mattscott9678 what?
@@JL-dance I can't actually disprove this. That's when I was born. I have no evidence of anyone being born prior. Also I've never personally felt an earthquake so they don't exist. I HAVE SPOKEN!!!!!!!!
i really like that you're doing topics that aren't already well documented.
There was a riot at Erie, PA with Head East and Atlanta Rhythm Section show that got rained out. The electronics used to mix sound and lights in the audience was burned.
There's a time and place for seeing Gentle Giant, and I can't imagine this was it.
True! I wish I had the opportunity to see them anywhere,but they were before my time unfortunately. I think I know what's on my listening list for today!!
Saw them do the Glass House material at a little club...astounding...
Ha!
One of the funniest things I remember was going to a rock concert featuring the Cult and Metallica at their height in the 90's. It was in Brno, Czech Republic and the whole city was suddenly invaded by stringy haired leather jacket guys carrying beer. The ones who couldn't afford to go inside the stadium climbed up into balconies of nearby apartment buildings, while housewives in curlers and hair nets swatted at them with brooms! Several bands including the previous mentioned and Faith No More for TWELVE bucks!.
I don't even want to imagine the devastation and the smell.
A friend of mine once took part in organising a small festival on a race track near my town and his peers had, to say the least, idealistic visions about it. It wasn't a total disaster, but he swore never again.
Turd Fields must have been glorious. Everyone leaving has doo doo pollon up to their knees.
Everyone had dirty bums and clothes when they left. So many disappointed parents
Just like San Francisco.
@@dieselscience Shaddap.
@@Anthony-hu3rj Oh, yeah. It's "San Franshithole" now.
have been there.. not that bad, but a handful of toilets for thousands of people. It did not smell good haha
Never heard of this. Great job w/ the archival reports/footage. Thanks for posting!
Crazy that only 2 people died here but Travis Scott and the astroworld organizers managed to kill 10. I loved the video but the festival seemed fairly tame when compared to that hell hole. I wish I could consider this the “worst festival” but it’s clearly been dethroned.
There were 5 times the attendees here too. Per capita, Travis Scott killed 25x the amount of bull island.
Sad but true. On top of that the Travis Scott had dozens of injuries. This bull island thing might not even had bathrooms but at least it didn´t have 10 deaths. Even Woodstock 99 did not have deaths I think even though moshpits were already a thing then. Now I remember why I cancelled Travis for almost 2 years and why I even thought he should have gone to jail. Watching this makes me even angrier at Travis Scott since he just had all the resources to avoid any deaths
Boones Farm Strawberry Hill Wine, my drink of choice in the 8th grade 71-72. They also had a Green Apple wine.
Many a day i downed a bottle of Boones Apple before school, cant believe i never got caught
Mine too, but for me it was high school. I graduated from that to quart bottle of beer and numerous joints.
@@haroldburrows4770 it was absolutely the worst drink ever.
Tickle Pink ; p
Exactly. Wasn't an eighth-grade weekend without boon farm involved. I didn't know wine could actually taste good until I was in my late twenties, but we thirteen-year-olds weren't drinking it for the taste
a slaughtered cow! did NOT expect that, best/worst festival moment ever
🤯
Poor cow🤐
@@LightFromADeadStar exactly.
Yeah I've seen the cars and trailers set on fire, and food and alcohol raided.. but slaughtering a cow is like some kids on biker meth trying to do something they saw in a Western and getting distracted by needing to shit in Poo Field and then there's music on stage and I just honestly forgot about the cow...
That moment you realize they aren't exactly "full of steaks". There's a few steps in-between.
It’s weird being from the Evansville and Warrick County area and not knowing anything about this music festival until now
Same
Thanks for posting! As someone that grew up in Evansville, I've heard so many stories about Bull Island, but this is the most comprehensive video I've ever seen on it.
Princeton here, wat up local
I had never heard of this music festival until now. I'm surprised that things didn't turn out worse!
Me too
_"The promoters had promised four hundred outdoor privies. One medical volunteer said there were no more than six."_
That anecdote alone would enough to convince me that Bull Island was unironically haunted. That amount of human suffering and defilement surely left an imprint... x3
Cheech & Chong's set was cut very short. They only performed about 15 minutes then a downpour ended it, it rained hard. The 15 minutes they were on they basically made fun of the festival calling it a total disaster and laughing about it.
Black Oak Arkansas thought it would be cool to release Doves at the beginning of their set. Only problem was Doves won't fly at night, they stayed on stage with the band. One took up residence on Jim Dandy's head and stayed a while. He'd brush it away, but it kept coming back. However, BOA's performance was one of the better one's at the infamous, "Bull Island Soda Pop Festival."
I was social director and VP at East LA College, and three months before Ch & Ch first album came out in 71 their Agent wanted to book them as unknowns. Are you kidding me? We'd already had TWO riots , YOu want to start ANOTHER one? Fifty percent of our student body was Latino and a host of Vietnam Veterans. I ended up living just down the street from Chong in Vancouver, BC . If the Agent had mentioned Chong was Canadian and they had teamed up in Canada first I might have been tempted to book them . But Cheech was a draft dodger; TODAY that would be known infor. I would NOT have gone well at ELAC in those days.
Just like The Nuge, who pooped his pants for 3 days to get out of serving in Viet Nam and admitted it to High Times magazine. Years later he tried to back track that shit, but I tend to go with his original story. He never had to fight in any rice paddy.
BOA was a great live band!
I wish this was a recorded and viewable performance thank you for sharing this
Great story!!!
Gives new meaning to the term “shit-fest”.
Lol. Good one!
Turd field lmao
That festival shows very well what hippies were indeed. They used to talk about saving the environment but would litter the whole island and burn so many things (causing more air pollution) just because they realized that their fantasy world wasn’t true
Exactly, then pillaging & stealing as well!! Not much peace & love🙄
Never trust a hippie
Lol that's the first time I've ever seen Boones Farm in a glass
I know right!?!? 😂
As a teenager I actually had a glass mug with a Boones Farm Strawberry Hill logo on it. Never had a chance to try the stuff. Sounds like a good thing I didn't!
Came for The Faces. Stayed for the open sewer and social collapse.
Everyone looks so smiley and sparkly at the beginning of any festival. By the third day of a dodgy one though everything becomes about bodily functions, basic survival and serotonin maintenance.
@@rockradstone the small feces turned into just the feces
Came for The Faces, stayed for the faeces
I've came on a few faces
Damn even a festival as chaotic as this has less casualties than Astroworld
I swear, this is the best music history channel here.
I would suggest delving into more of these documentaries and opening up a patreon for us to contribute to your good work.
Your content is solid Rhodium.
Whenever people talk about how all the amazing things happened long ago and now it's mostly garbage. Remember this.
It's always been 90% garbage, we only remember the quality. The top 40 lists from the 60s had a lot of crap on them too.
Go listen to 100 gecs and say that again
Probably some truth in that but its 100% crap nowadays.
Nah man the 60s were filled with some great music, even your run of the mill overproduced pop was good.
@@Pactastic042 I listened to 100 gecs and now gecgecgecgecgecgecgec
@@Pactastic042 Who the fuck are 100 gecs?
That's quite amazing. I'd have considered myself a fairly knowledgeable music fan.... I've been collecting bootleg concerts since the 70's and have over 4k shows, plus a very large library of books, documentaries etc and the entire Bull Island festival has slipped from my memory bank assuming it was ever there to begin with. I'll have to go back over some of my festival related docos/books and see if I can find a mention of it anywhere. Thanks for a very interesting video.
Hi
Anything on the Piper Rock festival may 1970 Ohio
right after Kent State
Thanks
I’m from Evansville, this is funny that this just came up in my recommend.
Also at 2:43 they showed “Russel Lloyd”. That man was murdered by a strange, mentally disabled woman, she killed the mayor at his house and after she went to my grandparents house and watched a movie with them before getting caught.
Cuurraazzzy
what a good alibi your grandparents have
@@SoCalChunkybutt my aunt was at the house at the time. Everyone knows about it and the lady that killed him was well known to be a friend of the family well before she killed him, Julie Van Orden was the woman’s name, the family is still friends with some of her relatives. I myself no longer associate with them for a number of reasons if that says anything about the family, they are all known to be criminals, my grandfathers brother (my great uncle) made fake currency, was part of the mafia, and later went to prison for murder.
It is 100% true without a doubt. And it’s not that crazy knowing them.
@@KingRiverVlogs I believe you...have known a few folks like that growing up in the mid west myself
The footage to this story is priceless Also i was born that weekend thankfully not there
I would add "rightfully" not there. But some people have cool moms...
@@GlennDavey Everyone knows only the cool moms hang out at Turd Field
@@howies5265 The fellers hang out there, the chicks pop a squat. Well who am I to tell anyone how to do their business? Anything goes in Turd Field ;)
@@howies5265 😁😁
Thank you - just forwarded to my son and his friends who just attended a sh*t show of a 3 day music festival in Byron Bay, NSW, Australia. I hope it helps them put things into perspective and speeds up getting over what they went through 😥
Was this Splendour in The Grass? I have friends who went to that this year but I haven't seen them yet to ask how it went. I hope your son and his friends are alright!
@@maddison1735 yes it was Splendour (in the Mud 😂). It was a pretty rough few days. Fortunately they stayed off site but had to wait 5 hours in the cold until 4am for busses that were supposed to leave every 10 minutes - the poor campers went through hell with flooded campsites. They are getting partial refunds for certain components of their tickets. It hasn’t put them off completely but the organisers definitely need to find a different location if it’s to go ahead in future.
As a musician, Boones was a big part. MD, Boones, Thunderbird, none of that hoity-toity Jack Daniels. Great vid!
Old English
Night Train
And Ripple.
I went to this festival and actually had a decent time. I took some strange pills from some weird dude on day 1. I woke up Tuesday morning and went home.
😂😂😂
Great work. Never heard of this one before, but you created a detailed account of what went on...glad there wasn't any footage of turd fields!
Excellent research and presentation. Glad you actually drunk some Boone's Farm to find out, that's what research is all about.
Really drives home the fact that a lot of the NIMBY reactions to potentially problematic events like these often just end up making things worse...
It's times like when I have that kind of reaction to the first sip of a bottle of wine that I wish I wasn't an alcoholic. But then I get through the first bottle and it tastes alright.
look at the County officials wearing the same suit they were married in, in 1955. Their brain was still in 1945.
The intended lineup was unbelievable. A shame it didn't happen.
IKR! Black Sabbath, The Faces, The Allman Brothers, Fleetwood Mac (this lineup with Christine Perfect {later McVie}, Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch in front of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie), and Joe Cocker would have been spectacular! The Doors were sans Jim Morrison who passed away the year before, so I don't think that would have been so great.
@@ronbo11 I saw Robbie couple of years ago, excellent show, so...
One way to sell tickets...
I went to this Festival. I was just turning 15 that summer. Had a pretty good time.
We were pretty close to one of the tractor-trailers that got torched. I thought that was rather grim. The summer of '74 Sedalia Mo festival was a similar 'cook-out' with sweltering temps.
I was there and had a great time. Perspective. It is what you make it.
Kids don’t understand the 70s